Snape's Eternal War
by McJunker
Summary: A collection of Snape's letters to Dumbledore. It's like every year there's some new attack on common sense.
1. Year One

Dear Headmaster;

What people never seemed to realize is, if you screw up a spell, it will generally either fail or backfire in the caster's face.

If you screw up at potions, you could level Scotland.

It had happened before. The Atlanteans, for one. One dumb kid who wanted to brew a potion that would improve muscle tone, and the next thing you know his whole civilization is relocated to the bottom of the ocean. Or the Russian warlocks back in the '70s. They tried brewing up some Felix Felicis, they slipped a dirty ladle into the cauldron, and the next thing you know, the Soviets were trying to figure out what went wrong at Chernobyl.

McGonagall and Flitwick and all those others can be as lax with discipline as they please. I cannot. They can feign horror at my policies and question my methods. Well, they are free too. The insults they mutter behind my back are only made possible because I stopped an eleven year child from turning the Hogwarts air into sulfuric acid.

Mistakes are simply not an option. Not in a Potions class.

It is a war I have waged for almost eleven years, singlehandedly. Each day that passes without death or permanent injury is a minor skirmish won. This war started the first day Hogwarts opened, and will continue long after I am gone. I can only hope to hold the inevitable at bay long enough to find a competent replacement for when I retire or die.

Some nights I wake up bathed in sweat, having dreamt that I had been replaced by somebody like Hagrid.

Incidentally. You have accused me in the past of being melodramatic. A "drama queen", as I believe you put it.

That's as may be. But it doesn't mean I'm not _right_.

Now, I've heard them say that I prejudged the Potter boy. That I took one look at his face and decided he was a clone of his father. That I have developed an unreasonable hatred for him.

As to who spreads these allegations, I could not say for certain. However, McGonagall _does_ tend to side with Gryffindors in every case...

In any case, these allegations are false. I merely recognized that he was the kind of child who, were I to give him a cookbook and tell him to bake a cake, would burn the house down on accident and still claim it wasn't his fault.

True, he was a nigh-identical copy of my arch rival, and that even if he was Salazar Slytherin reborn I still wouldn't want to spend time in his company. But I am a professional. More than that, I am a potions master. I can shelve my feelings and do what I must.

More than that, he was the son of Lily. I wasn't going to set him up for failure.

My judgement of him, while harsh, was accurate.

Potter needed to understand that in my class, he must do what I tell him, when I tell him, in the precise manner I tell him to do it in.

"I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper on death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

My exact words. It's the same speech I give every year to the first years. Show me _exactly_ where I acted inappropriately.

Exactly.

Though yes, I did make a crack about Potter's fame. Fair enough. I admit it, and won't call him a celebrity again. That's a reasonable request to make of me.

However, Potter did not prepare for my class. At all. This lackadaisical attitude towards potions was unacceptable. Swaggering into the dungeon like some Lockhart wannabe was bad enough, laughing with his little Weasley pal like they thought Potions was some kind of joke was worse, and doodling on scrap paper when he should have been paying attention to me was the final straw.

Unacceptable. And when I gave a quick quiz to test his knowledge, he failed.

He didn't even know what happened when you mix asphodel and wormwood! For god's sake! I have memorized every page of the first year potions textbook- the Draught of Living Death is on page three. Second paragraph from the top. Potter apparently couldn't be bothered to _open the damn textbook and read three damn pages._

I admit I was angry. This may have affected my tone to some extent. But pop quizzes are an acceptable teaching method. Moreover, Potter needed to get it through his head that he knew nothing about nothing. Not when it comes to Potions. We both know what the first step to wisdom is.

Next, he didn't know what a bezoar was. I mean, my God. Even _Muggles_ know what bezoars are. It's such a basic precaution in potions making that I have never had less than three on me when I brew even the simplest concotion, and always have at least 30 within arm's reach in a classroom environment.

I'll concede, though, that even the brightest first year would have been hard pressed to know that monkshood and wolfsbane were the same plant, let alone the Greek name for it. That one _may_ have been spite.

And, oh, did it get worse. When I set the class to brew the Boil Cure, the Longbottom boy somehow managed to send himself to hospital. Don't ask me how, it's the easiest potion I could find.

Actually, I tell a lie, I know precisely what went wrong. You have to take the cauldron off the fire before adding the porcupine quills. This step was written in the textbook in bold faced, capital letters, with several arrows pointing at it from several directions. Longbottom still forgot to do it.

If I got a pay raise every time some idiot child almost killed himself by ignoring my instructions, I could have started at a Knut a month and been a billionaire by now.

But here's the thing, you see. Potter was sitting not three feet from Longbottom, and didn't help him. And I know that he knew what Longbottom was doing wrong, because I watched Potter do his potion correctly just before the fool melted his cauldron.

And why, you ask, would Potter ignore a classmate's mistake?

Simple. The little puke knew that he had gotten off on the wrong foot with me by failing to read the textbook, so he figured that it would make him look better if Longbottom erred.

So. A stupid, ignorant child gets drenched in a fouled-up potion because Potter wanted a little positive attention.

But what if it hadn't been Boil Cure, hm? What if it had been Amorphous potion, or Joint Stiffener, or Tattoo Removal Ointment? What if instead of a mass of painful boils that Madame Pomfrey can fix in a heartbeat, the potion had mixed with the dust on the floor to unleash nerve gas into the air?

Some kinds of nerve gas rise, Albus. And we were in the lowest part of the castle.

I think I showed _significant_ restraint by merely taking a single point away for Potter's malice. I could have just mercy-killed him on the spot.

I have no doubt that Potter has given you a markedly different account of the incident. I'm sure that terms such as "unfair", "mean", "unreasonable" were thrown about with childish abandon.

Nonetheless, I will drill discipline and knowledge and self-control into Potter's skull as though my life depends on it. Because it does. One cannot envision imagine the horrors that can be unleashed when people do not approach Potions with respect and skill.

So, Headmaster, the Quaffle is in your court. Will you back the boy, or me?

Like I even need to ask. I'll see Potter in class Monday, and he will give Potions the respect it requires and I will give him the skill he needs. Full stop.

With any luck at all, Potter will live to see the summer. No thanks to _him_.

Regards  
Severus Snape


	2. Year Two

Dear Headmaster;

For years now, I have been pondering exactly why a wizard of your caliber has never risen to, shall we say, a higher position of responsibility. Headmaster of Hogwarts is a title that does bring a certain prestige, not to mention the chance at molding the future of tomorrow. And yet, surely the position of Minister of Magic had been open to you, had you desired it? The Head of the Magic Law Enforcement, sense your sense of justice was so widely known? Ambassador to some great foreign state?

Well, I'm glad to say that yesterday's staff meeting has cleared the issue up nicely. You're more fit for a jacket with extra-long sleeves and a room with rubber walls than you are for any form of office. Presumably, you realized that in a public position, people would quickly catch on that your quirky eccentricities were mere camoflauge for the blithering insanity that storms hourly inside your head.

Why in the name of God are you hiring Gilderoy Lockhart? I thought better of you, Albus.

Allow me to express my objections in a more orderly fashion:

One, he's a celebrity. This alone should be enough to disqualify him. Half the females in the student body will be indulging in lewd fantasies when they should be paying attention to their studies. The other half will be responsible enough to save their fantasies for their off time. Even apart from the inevitable declinine in coursework, the potential for serious abuse of position on Lockhart's end is enough to give one pause. You realize that you're giving an egotist a measure of personal power over a horde of hormonally unbalanced teenagers? There is a serious risk of lawsuit on the horizon.

Two, I am not even convinced that he understands the subject matter at all. His loathsome book Chatting with Chupracabras, though in this case I stretch the word "book" to its breaking point, was shot through with more errors than I could count. No, literally. Halfway through I hurled the book against the wall hard enough that I dislodged one of the stones embedded in the wall. I then restarted and kept a running tally of every blatant impossiblity and mistake he made. Once I reached #89 (_the _brujas_ in Central America have not practiced blood sacrifice in at least 1,500 years_), and saw that I was only on page 70, I burned the book and inhaled the ashes. Those ashes smelled like vengeance and vindication. In short, Lockhart is possibly the least qualified human being in the hemisphere to teach any subject other than _Intro to Primping like a Pimp_.

Three, in the course of writing this letter he owled me. He's _very_ excited about his new position as the teacher of Defense against the Dark Arts, and wishes to start up a duelling club with himself teaching and me assisting. If he is actually serious (and God save him, I think he is), I will kill him. End of story.

I have fought in more battles then I can remember, and survived every one of them. I know more about the Dark Arts than anybody without a Dark Mark. And he doesn't know the difference between a spell and a curse (#36, _just because Enrico Disarmed you doesn't mean he Cursed you. _Expelliarmus _is a SPELL, dumbass_). And _I _am assisting _him_.

There is a rare herb found only in certain Ukranian forests. It's called the Creeping Knife, and it was not so named due to ignorance or irony. Slavic warlocks have used it in assassinations for centuries. It is specially prized because of its effects, which include; extreme nausea; unbearable pains in the joints of the fingers, elbows and knees; migraine headaches; blindess; stomach hemorraghing resulting in vomiting blood; depression (hardly surprising); and after an uncomfortably long wait, death.

If you do not send an owl this istant telling him that the offer to teach here has been withdrawn, I shall slip this herb into Lockhart's morning tea. If you think I'm bluffing, just go on ahead and send him a letter in my stead saying that I would be happy to _assist _him with his little scheme. Just don't ask me to clean the walls and floors when I'm done with him.

Also, I have been meditating on our discuss last July as to the Potter boy. Perhaps I have been, shall we say, _hasty_ in my judgement of him. It's clear that while he does have a certain troubling disregard of all authority figures, he means well at least. I am prepared to offer him a fresh start in my books. My opinion of him will be based on his behaviour starting the second he walks off that train. So as long as he doesn't, say, assassinate the Minister of Magic, or set fire to Hogwarts, or shatter the Statute of Secrecy or something, he will be treated exactly like any other student in this school.

Regards,  
Severus Snape


	3. Year Three

Dear Headmaster;

I note with grave distress that a certain deranged, mass murdering, traitorous prisoner has managed to unshackle himself from his cell in Azkaban and is currently on the loose. There have been reports that Black's mind and will (and presumably, his magic) are relatively intact despite his incarceration, and that he was recently heard muttering in his sleep, "He's at Hogwarts, he's at Hogwarts."

Onviously, he's making a beeline for the Potter child. Because deranged, mass murdering, traitorous escaped prisoners have nothing better to do with their time than hunt down third year Gryffindors with Extra Special Scars on their foreheads. And how I wish that the previous sentence was sarcastic.

If you wish, I can run a full Curse Diagnostic Spell on that boy. This is his third year running of having strange, unpredictable, dangerous events converging directly onto him and his little gang. I can only assume that some Neo-Death Eater has placed an Entropy Curse on him sometime before his first year.

Well, in any case, egardless of my personal feelings, he naturally cannot be allowed to kill Potter. He may be a bumbling, disrespectful, dishonest, arrogant idiot, but he's Lily's bumbling, disrespectful, dishonest, arrogant idiot. Potter's the only thing left of her. Black's done enough pruning of that particular family tree.

So why, if I may be so bold as to ask, are we not doubling down on security? I know you have evey faculty member on high alert to keep an eye on him, but that is laughably insufficient. We can't just sit tight and hope that the Ministry will catch him before he reaches Hogwarts, Albus! They bumble more than a swarm of bumblebees! God, you were there in the first war. After the Dark Lord fell, the Aurors caught every Death Eater too stupid to hide or bribe- roughly, well, one in ten. Mad-Eye Moody may have a certain flair for taking down dark wizards, but his colleagues are still wondering what success and competence feel like.

No- we are the last and possibly first line of defense. We need to call in the dementors.

Yes, I am aware of your moral stance on creatures that suck out all joyful memories from humans and thrive on misery. Yes, I am aware that there is a certain risk to the student body with their presence. No, I do not care. The fact is Black cannot penetrate a solid wall of dementors that stands between him and Potter. It's a question of what works, not what you'd like in an ideal world. Give the students a safety breif about not trespassing into the dementors' area and to not poke them with sticks and so on. Anyone who fails to heed your advice meets Natural Selection head on.

Also, I want deadly curses, proximity jinxes, and surveillance hexes on evey square inch of the Hogwarts grounds. I want at least thirty deadly magical booby traps er hidden entrance. Spells like, Conjuring up a swarm of scorpions right into his nostrils. Curses that'll make his arms pop off his shoulders and rocket up two hundred feet in the air in a cascade of blood. Jinxes that'll Disapparate every thing south of the knees off to Thailand, and everything inside his chest cavity to Bermuda. And, I want spells in place to magically record it everytime the booby traps are sprung. We could watch Black get caught and just rewind it to watch it over and over. I'll bring the beer, you bring the Muggle candy.

We'd probably lose a few students trying to sneak out to Hogsmeade, but again, we would have given them fair warning beforehand.

In all seriousness, we do need the dementors for blanket security. The Ministry will probably be owling you soon to insist on providing them anyway; they regard Potter as a national resource, God knwos why. It couldn't hurt to immediately accept their offer instead of mulling it over for a while. They do seem to complain less when you humor them.

The security should put Black up against the wall. He'll be stuck on the outside looking in, desperate to try his luck at getting to Potter. Without a point of contact inside the very walls of Hogwarts to sneak him in, he'll be ied to the immediate area, thus allowing a big enough handicap for the Aurors to catch him. As long as he's absolutely friendless, alone, and unaided by any Hogwarts personnel, Potter will be safe as houses.

Speaking of Black being friendless and alone. I can't help but notice you recent note to me requesting that I start brewing up an supply of Wolfbane , that is far too advanced a brew for the students. It is for personal use, I imagine? Now why, I ask myself, would you need significant quantities of Werewolf Control potion?

If you hired who I fear you hired for the DADA position, there will be words, Albus.

Regards,  
Severus Snape


End file.
